"Repetitive too quickly"

I love city builders a lot. That's for sure. Pharaoh has all this and if you look beyond some of the minor bugs it works really well. After a while you have the strategy all worked out and start creating standard city blocks and only need to adapt slightly to the rivers, mountains and scenario specific resources.

The game starts out well and the introductions are fun. The first few missions go by quickly but then it gets repetitive for the rest of the game. Each new scenario tops the next for requirements but if you really feel like having to redo an entire map the same style for 5-6 hours then you should reconsider your gaming style. So what happens is that the game will probably stay on your PC unfinished for a while.

Gameplay: 9/10Great gameplay that is for sure. Some minor bugs aside the city runs smoothly. It's hard though, and pre-planning is required if one wants to succeed when the population starts to rise to hard-to-manage levels. The military aspect of the game is the weak point of the game. You basically just stack them around the corners of the map and send them off to other countries. Having to fight on your own turn is very basic and the ship battles are over within seconds.

Graphics: 10/10I love the 2 1/2 dimension games and don't see why they should be in 3D when the look ugly. The graphic are great and in case you haven't noticed, you can rotate around 360 degrees. All citizens are animated well and the houses are cute. The few minor bugs in the scenery that can happen are not too bad.

Sound: 9/10The cities are lively and all the people have appropriate accents. Nice touch. The music plays quietly in the background and if you don't like it then turn it off of course.

Overall: 8/10Because it gets boring soon the final rating is a little lower than what is to expect from the great gameplay, sound and graphics. I like this game a lot but still took ages to finish this. If you like this game I also recommend the Cleopatra Expansion pack.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10 | Originally Posted: 04/27/05

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